Religion gives way to economics

[rug]

By Mark Davis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Ray Newman has been studying a state map since last week’s Sunday alcohol sales referendums. A pastor and lobbyist for the Georgia Baptist Convention, Newman can cite one town after another where voters overturned blue laws.

Griffin, Pooler, Kingston: There, and elsewhere across the state, voters overwhelmingly embraced Sunday sales.

Georgia has diversified, said Newman, meaning the devil’s breath — alcohol — doesn’t smell quite as foul as it once did. Booze isn’t as widely stigmatized today. “People have come to Georgia from all over the United States and the world,” Newman said. “We’ve seen a cultural shift.”

Two decades ago, said Newman, voters never would have gotten the chance to decide whether alcohol could be sold on Sunday, the “Lord’s day.” Lawmakers would have heeded the exhortations of pastors and killed any legislation that proposed changing alcohol laws, he said.

http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/religion-gives-way-to-1224163.html

[NMMNG]

1. Nice to know people will ignore preachers when $$$ talks louder

When human rights are involved, however, not so much.

[rug]

2. I think it shows that economics drives things far more than religion does.

Marx was right.

[noiretextatique]

3. southern demographics are changing

more african-americans from the east and west are moving to the south.